An Impossible Choice
by TheyCallMetheTailor
Summary: When Lance and Pidge are captured, Pidge is forced to make an impossible choice: help the Galrans murder millions or watch Lance suffer.
1. Chapter 1

_AN:_ _This is going to be part 1 of a 2 part one shot. This was kind of a beast to write. Major thanks to my irl friends who helped beta! Please let me know what you think! Also, please come visit me on Tumblr to talk about Voltron/Lance/or Whatever. I'm a lonely bean._

 _Hope you enjoy. :) I promise there will be comfort in the next and final part!_

What I woke to was not ideal, I'll be honest, but it was much better than what I'd been expecting. First of all, I was alive, so that was a plus in my book. I mean, me being alive was a plus in anyone's book, right? Secondly, aside from a splitting headache and a few scrapes and bruises, I was fine. I wasn't bleeding out on the desolate desert landscape from my most recent memory, which would've sucked. So yeah, all in all, even though I was strapped to a hard metal chair in complete darkness without a clue where I was, things could be a lot suckier.

"Ugh," I groaned, voice scraping like sand from my throat. And not the fine beach sand from my home. More like the rough, grating sand from the desert. I could really go for a drink right then. Like maybe some coconut water straight out of the coconut. Or, and I couldn't believe I was even considering this, some nunvill. Anything to relieve the burning thirst in my throat. My organs were literally turning to dust as I sat there. The thought of dust and dry things turned my thoughts to my confused memories. I vaguely remembered a battle of some kind. And I definitely remembered Pidge at my side.

I started. That was right. Pidge and I had gone down planetside while the rest of the team kept the Galra occupied. We'd been trying to stop something awful. As in, millions of innocent lives on the line awful. A weapon of some kind...had we done it? What if we failed?

Another horrible thought occurred to me. "Pidge? You there?"

I was hit with a confusing mix of dread of possibly hearing a reply and desperate hope that I wouldn't. My heart sped up in my chest when there was no answer. Maybe Pidge had escaped, I thought, trying to keep my breath even. She'd be on her way back with the rest of the team to get me out of wherever the hell this was. Only I wasn't sure how they'd do that, because even I didn't even know where I was, and I was where I was.

I shook my head, trying to steady my thoughts. _Concentrate,_ I urged myself, _Okay, try to think. What would Shiro do right now?_ I considered for a moment. He would take stock of his situation, right? I squinted into the darkness, willing my eyes to see something, anything I could use to figure out where I was. It didn't take long to figure out that was a dead end. The most I could sense was a sterile hospital smell that I could most definitely do without.

I squirmed in my restraints, which were flexible but thick and rough against my skin. It felt like some sort of synthetic fabric or kevlar-essque material, but it was impossible to tell exactly what it was. I focused on pinpointing how exactly I was held down through touch alone. With a little more wiggling around, I could tell that my arms and legs were held down at the joints, with another strap around my chest and waist. I could wiggle my hands and feet, just barely, and could only arch my back by a few centimeters. I could move my head freely, but unless my method of escape was within biting distance, I wasn't sure how much good that was going to do me.

The sound of sudden movement in front of me sent an electric bolt of fear up my spine and I stiffened. If I was prone to superstition - which of course I'm not - the whole pitch black factor of my current situation might've had me freaking out a little. Luckily I'm not easily spooked, or my body might've shook a little more. I mean, not that I was shaking, of course. I spent several taut moments waiting, heart pounding loudly in my ears, but I didn't hear anything else. I had just began to relax slightly when I heard a voice groaning from the same direction I'd heard the first sound. A shudder ran through me. "Pidge?" I said again, and my voice didn't shake at all. "Is that you?"

"Lance?" came Pidge's disembodied voice in the darkness.

"Oh man, am I glad to see you!" I said, feeling a little light headed with relief. "Well, _hear_ you at least."

"Ugh, where are we?" Pidge asked, sounding as confused as I'd been a moment before.

"Um, not sure," I said, "But now that you're awake, we can figure a way out of this together. Any ideas? I was thinking something along the lines of Black Widow moves."

There was a shuffling noise in front of me before Pidge responded, sounding anxious, "Lance, I don't have my armor."

I paused and did some of my own awkward shuffling. "Crap. Me too. Feels like it's just the body suit."

Before Pidge could respond, the whole room was lit up with a searingly bright light. Both Pidge and I shouted in surprise and I slammed my eyes shut against the spike of pain it sent through my already aching head. "What the hell?" I grumbled. I chanced a squinting view of our surroundings, squeezing my eyes back shut against the too bright space.

"Paladins of Voltron," a low voice greeted us, coming from my side, "I see you are finally awake. And just in time, too." I forced myself to open my eyes ever so slightly against the painfully bright light and kind of wished I hadn't.

Across from me, I could see that Pidge was strapped to a metal chair, struggling against her own bonds. The space around us looked like some kind of medical lab, or maybe even a coroner's workspace. Or maybe a place for horrible experiments I didn't want to consider. It was a small room with smooth metal walls and purple lighting that only reinforced the mad science lab feel. The floor was also made of metal that was slanted down toward what looked suspiciously like a drain in the center. I swallowed. _Okay,_ I thought, _So the Galra have shitty taste in design._ I was _not_ going to think too hard about what that drain might mean.

A tall Galra woman stood in the doorway, flanked by two armed guards and another slender Galra with a metal case in his hands. Something about that box screamed Not Good. All capitalized and everything.

"You know us," I said, forcing myself to sound casual even though my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest, "We're practically experts at the heroic last minute timing thing." I smiled winningly up at her. Most people don't know this about be, but I'm a big fan of the "fake it till you make it" way of doing things.

The woman, some high ranking officer of some kind, smiled down at me from her standing position, which was pretty high considering how freakishly tall she was, even for a Galra. Her eyes were stone cold, sizing me up without a shred of emotion. I'm not short by any means, but I suddenly felt very, very small under her gaze. The two other soldiers remained at the only entrance to the room: a heavy metal door I don't think Pidge and I would be knocking down action hero style any time soon. She turned to the slender Galra, who had set the metal box on a table between Pidge and I. "This one is the pilot of the Blue Lion, I presume?" she asked him, like I wasn't even there.

"That's me," I said, flashing the commanding officer my most dazzling smile, "Nice to know you've heard of me. The vids just don't do me justice, do they?" The tech or whatever he was just ignored me.

"Yes ma'am, he is," he replied to the officer, voice business-like, "The other is the pilot of the Green Lion."

The Galra officer turned to Pidge, and I didn't like the way her eyes lit up like a kid who'd just been handed a bag of free candy, "This is the one responsible for disabling our missile?" At her words, the jumbled mishmash of my memories came into focus. _That's_ what we'd come here for. There'd been a missile set to launch at a heavily populated planet to force Team Voltron into "negotiations" with the Galra. The rest of the team had been sent to pretend to comply with the Galrans' demands, while Pidge and I went in secret to disable the missile.

Well, I mean, _Pidge_ was sent to disable the missile. I'd been sent to cover her while she did it. And apparently she'd held up on her end, but I'd failed miserably on mine. I struggled to catch my breath. I'd screwed up royally, and now Pidge was going to pay the price.

I blinked, trying to focus. I couldn't panic now. I had to pay attention. There was a way out of this. There had to be. I wasn't about to make this worse than I already had by falling apart.

The Galran officer was still speaking. "...one is much smaller than I expected."

Pidge glared, straining against her bonds, "'This one' took out five of your own before you sucker punched her, and I'll take out five more once I get out of here." I'm pretty sure when Pidge was made, someone had to make room for all her awesome tech savvy and obsessive determination, and there just wasn't enough room left to fit a healthy amount of self preserving fear when they were done.

"Oh, I'm quite aware of how destructive you can be," the Galra officer said, lip curling and eyes narrowing. The look spoke volumes. Despite her professional soldier act, she clearly had a serious, borderline homicidal grudge against Pidge. This was personal for her. Her hateful look twisted into a smile. "Which is why I'm going to turn your destructive capabilities towards ends more aligned with my own."

"Yeah?" Pidge said, skeptical as ever, "I'd like to see you try."

The Galra officer's smile widened and she nodded to the slender Galran beside her. He proceeded to open the metal box, cool as a cucumber, like he wasn't revealing a disturbing array of sharp and blunt objects with glowing purple edges. It made my skin prickle. "So, uh, what's that for?" I asked, words leaving my mouth in a nervous rush, "I'm usually a fan of surprises, but more like the birthday kind, you know? But my birthday's not for a few months." I paused, "Well, actually...I'm not sure what month it is exactly." Good grief, what was I even saying? I felt like I was going to be sick.

The Galran officer just ignored me and walked up to the open tool box. Ugh, tool box? I'd have to think of better ways to name things in my head. "I'm going to make this simple," she said, hand hovering over several instruments before settling almost lovingly on a simple looking blade. "If you give me what I want, you'll be rewarded. If not…" She approached Pidge and, without any warning whatsoever, cut through the fabric of Pidge's shoulder and into her skin with a flick of her blade. Pidge let out a hiss of pain before clamping her mouth shut, her entire body rigid.

"Hey!" I shouted as I threw myself against my restraints. "Leave her alone! You didn't even tell her what you wanted!" The blade made a hissing noise and a sizzling puff of steam rose from its surface where Pidge's blood was quickly burned away.

Pidge just continued to glare at the officer, the wound on her arm inflamed and angry but not bleeding. It'd been cauterized even as it tore into her skin. I swallowed bile at the sight. Pidge's eyes just hardened and I could see in the way her shoulders set and her jaw clenched that she was coming to some kind of resolution. With Pidge, once she was decided on one course of action, there was no changing her mind, and I had an awful feeling I knew what she'd decided. "It doesn't matter what she wants," Pidge said to me, not taking her eyes off the officer, "Because I'm not giving it to her. So she might as well kill me now."

I have never been more proud and terrified in my entire life. "Um, maybe cool it on the killing thing?" I said, "We can definitely talk this out."

"Listen to your friend, Green Paladin," The officer said, completely unfazed by Pidge's lack of fear. If anything, she looked even more excited at the prospect of Pidge's continued defiance. "You haven't even heard my demands yet."

"I'm not stupid. I can connect the dots. You want me to re-enable the missile." She shook her head in disgust. My insides curdled. This was even worse than I'd thought. "And I'm not about to do anything to help you hurt people." And she wouldn't. Stupid, brave Pidge would die before she'd give in out of sheer spite.

The officer stared at Pidge, that same calculating stare from before that had made me feel like an insect under a microscope. Finally, she nodded, as if she'd confirmed some foregone conclusion. "Yes, it is good to know that the one responsible for my sister's execution is not easily cowed."

There was a flicker in Pidge's expression, there and gone again in an instant, but I saw her eyes waver. "So that's what this is really about?" Pidge said, "Some sick revenge for your sister?"

The officer looked offended at the suggestion. "Oh no, Green Paladin," she said, "My sister failed in her duties to keep our data systems secure from any breeches. Death by Zarkon's hands was her just reward. I simply plan on cleaning up her mistakes."

"Whoah, hold on," I said, reaching blindly for anything that would pull her attention to me, "Zarkon killed your sister just because Pidge was able to hack into your systems? I think you're mad at the wrong person here."

Again, the officer seemed to only have eyes for Pidge. She leaned forward, her face mere inches from Pidge's. "You are going to fix my missile, or else I will make you. And believe me when I tell you, I am not picky which way you choose. Either way, you'll do what I want in the end."

Pidge met her eyes, stare for stare, and opened her mouth to say something. Probably something that would piss off this Galra lady and make her hurt her again. White hot panic spurred me to action.

"Why bother?" I asked loudly to try and cover up whatever Pidge was about to say, "Because you're going to be executed for your own failure after this."

If she heard me, the Galran woman showed no sign. Then, suicidal inspiration struck, and I lowered my voice and narrowed my eyes, "Just like your sister."

The officer threw me a death glare and growled, "Someone shut this one up."

"Yes, Commander Beris," one of the soldiers at the door said, and stepped toward me.

"Wait a second," I pleaded, heart racing, even as I felt a surge of hope now that her attention was finally on me. "It's not a problem. I can shut myself up. See? I-" I was cut off by a large, sledgehammer of a fist ramming into the side of my face. The force of the impact threw my head sideways and I would've come crashing to the floor if not for the bonds on my arms and chest holding me upright. I blinked, dazed and tasting coppery blood in my mouth. My jaw throbbed painfully.

Pidge looked ready to murder someone. Her whole body twisted against her bonds and I could see them biting into her skin. It was probably agony with her injured arm. "Keep your hands off him!" She shouted furiously. Under her anger, her panic was clear as day. I just hoped I was the only one who could see it.

Commander Beris, as the punch-happy soldier that had clobbered me called her, raised an eyebrow at Pidge. Then she turned her studying gaze on me. I hate to admit it, but I wished I could hide behind my chair under her stare. I forced myself to meet her eyes though. I might've ruined everything, but there was no way in hell I was going be a chicken on top of that. After a moment, she turned back to Pidge, smile returning to her face. My heart sank. "The demands are mine to be made," Commander Beris said, walking back over to her tool box, "And mine are simple. All you need to do is fix what you've done to our missile."

Pidge's reaction was instant, "Hell no."

The Commander pulled out a baton with a glowing purple tip. It hummed with dangerous energy.

"Now, hold on," I said, my stupid voice going high with alarm, "Commander Beris, buddy. Pal. Let's just slow down and think about this."

"Are you sure?" She asked, addressing Pidge, "You really won't help me fix what _you_ broke?"

Pidge just straightened in her chair and stared back at Beris, daring the commander to do her worst.

"Pidge-" I started, not liking where this was going. Not that I could think of anything that would help. Pidge's choice was impossible. The death of millions or her own safety. Selfishly, I willed her to choose herself, but I knew she never would.

"So be it," Beris shrugged, then, instead of moving back toward Pidge like I'd expected, she stepped toward me. My brain had one horrifying moment to realize what was going to happen to me before the glowing tip connected with my stomach.

I couldn't help it. I screamed.

Blinding, searing pain ripped through me at the point of contact, flooding my veins with acid and seizing my muscles in a vice. Every inch of my body was on fire, from my toes to the tips of my hair. All thought was incinerated in an inferno that burned hungrily under my skin. Inescapable no matter how hard I struggled. I wasn't sure how long it lasted, something like hours, I think. When I was finally released from the agony, all I could do was sag bonelessly against my restraints. I sucked in deep lungfuls of air. I hadn't even realized I'd stopped breathing.

Several aftershocks of energy spasmed through my limbs and I gasped, more out of the expectation of the far greater agony of the baton than any real pain. I became blearily aware of Pidge shouting my name right across from me.

"Lance?" she said, voice strained and worried. I forced myself to look up and make eye contact with her. "Lance!" she said when I did, and at any other time I might've basked in the way her features crumpled in relief. So she _did_ care. As things were, though, it took all my energy just to keep my head from lolling to the side.

"I'm alright," I said, and I hated the way my voice shook. "Just a little shocked." I chuckled weakly at my own joke. Pidge didn't laugh.

Neither did Beris.

She _did_ smile, though, but I don't think she was appreciating my sparkling sense of humor. "That was merely a taste of what I am capable of," she said, talking to Pidge again, eyes alight with a manic energy even though the rest of her face remained coldly professional.

"You sick bastard!" Pidge growled, more shaken than I'd ever seen her. "He doesn't know how to fix your stupid missile! Leave him out of this!"

"Oh, but you do," Beris said, not quite managing to keep the glee from her voice. "And all you have to do to stop me is do just that."

If I thought I felt sick before, it was nothing compared to the way my stomach lurched with guilt and shame as my pain addled mind finally understood just how horribly screwed we were. Not only had I failed, but Beris was going to use me to make Pidge fail too. Even as my limbs started to tremble, I felt a hard leaden resolve settle deep in my chest. "Is that really your plan?" I asked, "Pidge is the smartest Paladin. She's not about to help you kill millions of people just to save me," I locked eyes with Pidge and willed her to understand. "Even if I am the best looking Paladin."

Her eyes were wide with a fear I hadn't seen when _she'd_ been the one facing torture, and for the first time since I'd known her, Pidge looked completely lost.

"Don't be so sure, Blue Paladin" Beris said, fear rippling through me at her eager, assured tones, "What will it be, Green Paladin? Will you do what I ask?"

Pidge's face was whiter than I'd ever seen it, eyes haunted and pleading. She was frozen with indecision, I realized. Forcing stiff muscles to work, I shook my head at Pidge, not trusting myself to speak.

"Well?" Beris said, sounding irritated, "I'm growing impatient."

Eyes fixed on mine, skin pallid and face grim, Pidge finally shook her own head. Her gesture was a small echo of my own. "No," she whispered hoarsely, like she hoped Beris wouldn't hear her answer.

I was so focused on Pidge's face that I didn't see the baton coming again.

It felt longer this time, more all-consuming, and it took everything I had just to cling to consciousness. At the end of it, I was gasping, the edges of my vision hazy. My useless muscles juddered, rattling my bones and making my teeth chatter. When I was finally able to lift my head up, it felt like the last gruelling rep at the end of one of Keith's killer workout sessions.

I looked toward Pidge but quickly let my gaze drop. I couldn't quite meet her eyes anymore. I was terrified of the anguish and fear I saw reflected in them. Anguish and fear for _me_.

I'd screamed again, even though I'd told myself I wouldn't. I couldn't bear the pain in silence the way she had when she'd been cut. I could survive this, though. At least I thought I could. As long as I didn't see how this was hurting _her_.

More than all of that, though, I was afraid of what she would do if she was able to see what showed in my own eyes.

"I'm...alright," I panted, almost by rote.

I swallowed hard against a fresh wave of fear when Beris spoke again. I couldn't exactly bring myself to focus on the individual sounds she was making, but I knew what she was asking, and I knew what would follow.

Pidge's response was even weaker this time, barely audible, but I heard it anyway. "No." My muscles were already stiffening in expectation of more pain, but it didn't come.

"What was that?" Beris asked for what I realized was not the first time, and I finally forced myself to look up again. She held Pidge's chin roughly in one hand, "I'm afraid I couldn't hear you."

Pidge tried to yank her jaw away, but Beris's hold was too strong. With escape from her grip apparently not an option, Pidge growled and spat at her. Beris backhanded her, hard and fast, and I yelped like I'd been the one who'd been struck. Beris had hit her so hard I was afraid her neck broke. I could've cried with relief when Pidge brought her head back up. She looked out of it and the side of her face was a red, rapidly bruising mess, but she still managed to school her features into a scowl.

Fury and fear tore through me, giving me a second wind, and I pulled at my restraints with every ounce of strength I had in me. Even still, it was a pathetically weak attempt. Beris jerked Pidge's face up and looked ready to strike with her other hand. I knew I had to do something, and even though just breathing hurt at this point, I straightened in my chair. "She said," I told Beris through heavy breaths, "'No.'" My voice sounded like I'd run it through a wood chipper. It kind of felt like it, too.

Beris stilled, letting go of Pidge's face and turning back toward me. There was murder in her eyes. _Oh god oh god oh god,_ my thoughts screamed as she approached me. Somehow, though, I kept my gaze level. Although I think the tremors that ran through every inch of me gave me away. At the last moment before the baton set fire to my nerves, I squeezed my eyes shut.

I think I really must've lost consciousness this time, because next thing I knew, rough hands were grabbing me by the hair and forcing my head up. The stinging tug at my scalp was just one more almost gentle point of discomfort among my now numerous aches and pains. I groaned and blinked open my eyes.

Pidge's expression struck me like a physical blow. I tugged weakly against the grip on my hair. My tormentor only yanked my head up even higher so that now some of my body weight was supported by my neck.

"Look at what you're doing to him," Beris said from beside me. Her voice dripped with false concern. I realized with a crawling sensation that she was the one who held my hair, putting me on display for Pidge. I tried to smother any expression of fear or pain, but I'd never been very good at hiding my feelings, and the muscles in my face weren't being very helpful. If the stricken look on Pidge's face was anything to go by, I failed miserably.

"He's in so much _pain_." Beris drew out each word, emphasizing the last with a vicious jerk of my head. The motion made my world spin and I thought I was going to be sick. If this was how Hunk had felt every time I flew the simulations, I thought vaguely, I owed him a major apology. Not that I didn't owe everyone that and more for how badly I'd screwed up this time. If we even made it out of this alive.

"Just stop!" Pidge shouted, voice breaking, and I willed myself to speak - to say something that would reassure her, but my body had decided it was taking a break from doing pretty much everything at the moment.

Beris moved the baton so that now it hovered inches from my skin and my stomach clenched. I barely managed to swallow the whimper that bubbled up my throat. "I'd be happy to," Beris said, "Just say the word."

There was a moment of tense silence, but no response from Pidge. Her silence was its own answer now. When I felt the baton pressed into my stomach again, I almost welcomed the near senselessness it brought with the pain.

I was jolted back to awareness by something pumping my veins full of ice and a pinch at my shoulder. I gasped like I'd just come up from several minutes under water, eyes wide and my heart pumping out an erratic beat behind my ribs. I shivered, sweat-drenched skin frozen in the climate controlled air. The tech guy from before removed a needle from my arm, swabbing the area with a damp pad and stepping away for the commander to take his place at my side again. I could've laughed. How thoughtful of them. Wouldn't want an infection or anything.

As the chill slowly seeped out through my muscles, a dull, feeling returned like needles in my pores in its wake. Whatever they'd pumped me full of had given me enough strength to keep my head up, but it also felt like every painful sensation had been amplified tenfold.

My breath caught in my throat at the sight of the new tool in the commander's hand. It was a gleaming, monster of a blade, larger than a butcher's knife with a paper thin edge that oozed a purple glow. My eyes flickered to Pidge, who sat stock still, eyes locked on the knife. It was like someone had drained her body of life and left this stiff, brittle husk behind. I made myself look up at the commander, horrified to find out that she was looking back down at me.

"So glad to have you back with us, Paladin," she said, "We wouldn't want you to miss out on anything. I was just explaining to your friend here that, in the interest of saving time, we were going to move things right along here."

I swallowed down the terror clawing at my throat. "So we're...skipping to the part where you let us go?" I croaked.

"Unfortunately, that's not an option," she said, "No, we're going to do something different here." She hefted the knife with one of her massive hands, then, ever so particular, held its edge just above my exposed wrist.

"N-now hold on," I said, mind blanking, "Wait a sec."

"I will give you to the count of three, Green Paladin," the commander said, "This blade is specifically designed to cut straight through flesh and bone. One flick of my wrist and this will cut straight through _his_ wrist."

I dragged my eyes away from my wrist and the wicked looking knife held suspended just above it. I could feel the heat of the energized edge singing the hairs of my skin. Jaw clamped tightly, I looked at Pidge, who finally pulled up her eyes to meet mine. Her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, and even though she tried to hide it, I could tell she was beyond even her limits now. Her eyes were red rimmed and her already fair skin was completely sapped of any color.

"One…." the commander started.

My own heartbeat filled my ears, chest tightening. Pidge's eyes flickered from mine to the knife and back again.

"Two…"

I didn't dare move my wrist with the knife so close, but I wanted to yank my hand away with every cell in my body.

"Three…"

Like a moth drawn to a flame, my eyes were pulled back toward my wrist.

The commander shrugged, "Well," she sighed, "Just remember, Green Paladín, you did this to him."

The blade seemed to lift in slow motion, and my eyes followed, pulled by an invisible string. Then it came crashing down.

When I didn't feel my muscles and tendons get separated right away, I risked a peek through slitted eyes. And when I saw that the blade was stopped, inches above my wrist yet again, I didn't know if I could trust my own senses. But then I realized I'd heard Pidge's voice just as the commander had brought the blade down.

"Wait," Pidge repeated, quieter this time. "I'll do it."

The commander grinned, eyes glittering in triumph. "Do what?"

"I'll fix the missile," she said, voice like acid, eyes fixed on the ground, "I'll do it. Just...please, stop hurting him."

"PIdge, no." I said, the shock finally wearing off and quickly replaced by a whole new rush of panic, "You can't do this. Not for-" I hesitated, unable to finish. _Not for me._

Pidge's eye stayed fixed on the ground. The commander didn't remove the knife from it's uncomfortable position above my wrist. "Hallen, Raggen, release the Green Paladin's upper restraints and bring the portable access port."

"Pidge, please, don't," I pleaded. My voice came out desperate and broken.

The same soldier who'd smashed his fist into my face earlier pressed a button on a panel fixed to the wall and the restraints on Pidge's arms and chest slithered snake like into the recesses of the chair. "Oh," the commander said conversationally, "And just in case you get any stupid ideas…"

The knife moved faster than my dazed eyes could follow. Pidge's scream was deafening in my ears. One minute, all my fingers were whole and attached to my hand where they belonged. The next, I was staring down at my armrest, my brain unwilling to process what was right in front of it. The whole scene had suddenly taken on a suspended, surreal feel. I was underwater, all sound sluggish and unintelligible under the sound of my own rapidly beating heart. This wasn't happening - couldn't be real.

I was only vaguely aware of my own screaming because of the way it rattled my throat. The chill of the air on my sweat soaked skin felt like it came from somewhere far away, unconnected to my own body. My voice choked off in a strangled gurgle as my lungs seized, scrabbling for oxygen. I thrashed uselessly, helpless to do anything to escape the horrible misshapen mess my hand had become. There, a perfectly straight line separated the tips of my fingers from what were now stumps. Flesh and bone hadn't even stood a chance against the inhumanly sharp blade.

Through it all, one stupid, jarring thought kept slithering, pervasive and unavoidable through my mind: If I ever even had been, I was no sharpshooter anymore.

When I woke some time later, my whole world was a hazy swirl of pain and confusion. My head hurt. My bones throbbed. Even my freaking _eyes_ felt swollen and aching. Above it all though, was a deep, bone wrenching pain radiating up through the tips of my fingers on my right hand.

One time, back when I was young and stupid, I'd gone to explore a sea cave near my home with some friends. I'd slipped and fallen and messed up my arm pretty bad. I'd had to walk home feeling like an idiot with my arm hurting like crazy the whole way back. I thought my mom was going to break my other arm when I walked through the door that day. At the time, I'd been in the worst pain of my life.

That god awful experience didn't even come close to what I was feeling right now.

I was doing my best not to think about why exactly my hand hurt. Any time I got even close to considering it - to wrapping my mind around it - my fractured thoughts dissolved into a gibbering mess until I managed to corral them into something coherent again.

"I'm doing the best I can," Pidge's familiar terse tones finally broke through the fog in my mind and wrenched my eyes open. "The program I used before corrupted everything to the point that it's not salvageable. I have to rewrite everything from scratch."

Oh god, that was right. I was still strapped to a chair. One of the Galran soldiers stood by my side, unnervingly close, and all I could think was that I was relieved it wasn't Beris.

Then the devil herself spoke, and I broke out in a cold sweat. "Your excuses will mean very little to your friend when I cut off the rest of his hand."

It was like some switch in my brain had been flipped on and blaring alarms went off in my head. My hand. My fingers. Beris had...My whole body convulsed with dry heaves as the horror finally settled in.

 _No,_ I wanted to sob, _No no no no no. Please, no..._

Out loud I could only retch.

 _Breathe_ , a voice in the back of my head urged in calm tones that reminded me of Shiro, _You need to breathe_.

And somehow, after several false starts, I was able to get a handle on my breathing and my stomach settled from its violent churning into a slow rolling nausea. I didn't have the strength for much else. All the energy I had was spent keeping my eyes carefully fixed to my left, staring down at the blank metal wall. Away from my throbbing fingers.

It was right about then that I started to hallucinate.

A vaguely familiar sword sliced through the wall in a wide curve, sparks flying and metal screeching in protest. It continued until it had cut an arch about as tall as a human person through the wall. I blinked, and reflexively lifted my hand to rub my eyes. Even the tiny, abortive movement stopped by my restraint sent white hot pain slicing up through my hand. I hissed, the edges of my vision going dark. The cut in the wall was smashed inward by an explosion that rattled my teeth.

I knew for sure I was seeing things that weren't there when Keith burst through the door, Shiro at his heels. I knew _for sure_ for sure when Coran burst through after them, dressed in ancient Altean armor I'd never seen him in before. His helmet looked like something out of an old sci fi flick. The visor was red with a thin blue slit for him to see through, its forehead decorated with sharp gold wings extending like atenas above his head. He had a massive energy gun in both hands and world's most magnificent red cape blowing wildly behind him. He looked like some sort of medieval sci fi Rambo.

We'd been in Galran hands less than a day and I'd already lost it.

I watched, entranced by my brain's ability to magic up what was probably the least likely turn of events given our current situation. I had to hand it to my imagination, though, the vision was almost awe inspiring.

Keith came in like a wrecking ball, hard, fast, and destructive. The soldier at my side didn't stand a chance against him. His sword cut through the the Galran's armor like it wasn't even there. The Galran managed to get one shot off, but it went wide and didn't hurt anything, except maybe the far wall which now had a new scorch mark.

Shiro, meanwhile, had run straight at Beris. Beris managed to dodge the first swipe of his sharp glowing arm, and its tip only grazed her stomach. Her face contorted in rage. "No!" she shouted, "You can't do this!"

She rolled to the side, then flung herself at Shiro with all the strength her bunched up leg muscles could give her, that awful knife from before in her hand. I gasped, throat tight with fear, even though I knew this was all in my head. True to his reputation as the Champion, though, Shiro knocked her knife hand off course with his left forearm, then brought his prosthetic one up in a fist to her midsection. The commander let out a pained grunt, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth, then slid to the floor.

Coran let out a furious war cry, swung his gun in my direction, and fired. I couldn't move, frozen and terrified. I felt the heat of the blast on my shoulder and face as it flew past and struck something behind me. There was a pained cry then the sound of a body hitting the ground. My eyes were locked on Coran as he ran toward me and flung his gun to the ground. I couldn't have moved even if I wasn't tied down, too shocked to react.

He knelt down at my side and pressed a button on the side of his helmet that made the visor slide up to reveal his face. His eyebrows were furrowed, his mouth a grim line under his mustache. He opened his mouth to say something when Pidge let out a cry behind him.

We both jerked in surprise and looked up to find the tech who'd brought in the metal box stooped over Pidge's chair from behind. He'd grabbed Beris's fallen knife and held it at Pidge's throat, his other arm pinning her by the chest to her chair. "Don't move or-" The tech was cut off when Keith's sword struck his shoulder, sending him careening to the floor and the knife clattering from his hand to Pidge's lap. In the most predictably unpredictable Keith move ever, our Red Paladin had flung his sword right at the tech.

The rest of us watched, open mouthed as Keith hurried over to Pidge, apparently unconcerned about everyone's reactions to his alternative sword technique. "Are you okay?" He asked her, pulling out a knife to start cutting through her bonds.

"I'm fine," she said shakily, She didn't look even close to fine. She pointed to me, "Help Lance. He's…He's hurt bad." Her voice grew small and very un-Pidge like at the end, and my gut clenched.

In front of me, Coran shook himself, seeming to recover from his own surprise, and turned back to me now that the danger to Pidge had passed. His eyes slid to my right hand, and his eyes widened, all the color leaving his face. Even his markings looked a little duller.

His eyes hardened and the lines on his face looked more pronounced than ever. "Those bastards." He growled. I'd never seen Coran look so...dark.

"I'm fine," I said, "I am A-okay." Or at least I tried to, but my words came out in a muffled garble that I wasn't sure Coran could understand.

He reached over to the strap at my right hand and pulled out a knife from a holster at his waist. Cold terror gave me new life. Why couldn't this hallucination have ended at the good part? I couldn't understand why would my mind do this to myself. Maye whatever they'd injected me with had messed with my head. I writhed against my straps, my whole body screaming painfully, a stream of protests leaving my mouth. "Please, no," I kept saying, "Please."

Shiro came to my side and gripped my arm with strong hands so that I couldn't move it at all. My face was wet with tears and I couldn't understand whatever it was Shiro was trying to say in soothing tones. It made me feel sick again. Something bumped my hand, sending a crippling wave of pain through me. I tried to stay awake, to fight, but it had all suddenly become too much.

I collapsed into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

Pidge couldn't get her lungs to fill all the way with air. Instead, they felt compressed and her breaths came rushed and shallow to compensate for their constricted state. She forced herself to focus on keeping her bare feet pounding, one after the other, into the cold unforgiving metal of the floor. She didn't dare think beyond that. If she did, her limbs might go stiff with guilt, gutting her will to move forward. She couldn't let herself fall behind. She couldn't add to her already mounting pile of crimes against her fellow paladins. She owed it to them - to Lance - to help see their way out of this hell hole.

A sudden blaring alarm cut through her thoughts, adding its cacophony to the inexorable beating of her heart in her eardrums. _Can't worry about that right now._ She urged herself onward blindly. _Just have to keep moving. Don't stop._

"Damn," Keith said from her right, his voice tight, though his steps didn't falter, "Thought we were supposed to have more time."

"Doesn't change the plan," Shiro said, his words echoing Pidge's thoughts, "We need to keep moving." Lance was slung in a fireman's carry over his shoulder, the blue paladin's haphazardly bandaged hand dangling limply down the black paladin's back. Pidge quickly glanced back down, away from the sight. They approached a blind corner and ahead of them and Coran motioned for them to stop as he peered around to check for incoming guards. Pidge leaned against the wall, panting heavily, edges of her vision darkening.

 _Your fault._ Her thoughts sliced with sharp bitterness into her resolve to keep moving. She clenched her fists, nails cutting into her skin, and gritted her teeth against stinging tears. Now was not the time for her to wallow in useless emotions. Why was she being like this? And why couldn't she seem to get in a proper breath? It wasn't like she'd been injured in her chest or anything. Her heart wouldn't slow down either. What was wrong with her?

Pidge started at a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Keith looking down at her, a concerned look on his face. Did she look that bad? "Hey Pidge, you okay? Maybe I should look at your arm."

Keith's concern only served to compound her guilt. She shrugged his hand away roughly. "I'm _fine_ ," she said, the words coming out harsher than she meant them to, and Keith's eyes widened slightly, his hand pulling away to hover over her shoulder. She turned away from the expression to look down the hall. "Let's just focus on getting La-" she sucked in a breath, "Let's just focus on getting out of here."

Coran motioned them forward, and they all took off together. Their mad dash down the maze like corridors of this hellish place becoming a peripheral blur around Pidge as she returned her focus back to her pounding steps. Shiro's breaths were becoming more labored, the strain of carrying another person for so long starting to challenge even him. She heard him mutter something into his communicator, presumably to Allura, but didn't really focus enough to hear the words.

Pidge's only warning that something was wrong was Coran's shout of surprise and Keith's restraining hand on her arm just before a thunderous boom shook the ground around them. She would've lost her footing if not for Keith's grip. She saw Shiro had a bracing arm against the wall, clearly almost thrown off balance as well. She was just glad he'd managed to remain upright.

"Our getaway ride is just on the other side of that door," Coran said, trying to hide it under his usual bluster, but clearly anxious.

She looked down the corridor to see an emergency security door had slammed shut, blocking off their only path forward. There was a control panel at the side, and Pidge immediately tore from Keith's grip to approach it. "I'm on it," she said woodenly, feeling her mind settle automatically into the comfortable train of branching thoughts that always helped her problem solve. This was her bread and butter. This was how she helped the team. She was perversely gratified by this roadblock to their escape, and she hated herself for it.

She forced herself to ignore the shouts of alarm from her teammates and the blasts of gunfire behind her and focused on the task at hand. Only her mind was suddenly miles away, back to when she'd been focusing just like this. Blocking out all possible distractions in favor of disarming the weapon for mass murder before her. All possible distractions including Lance. In the present, her hands hovered over the control panel, shaking. She willed them to move, to work their magic, but like her lungs and heart, they refused to cooperate.

"Pidge! Move!" Someone shouted behind her, and she shook her head mutely. She could do this. She just needed a second. A small part of her even believed that.

"Pidge! There's not much time!" Came another voice, and the fear she could hear only made her hands shake harder. _Move!_ She railed angrily against her own immobility. _Why won't you move?_

"Damnit, Pidge, look out!" Keith shouted from behind her just as she was thrown sideways by the force of his body striking her side. Not a second later, another low rumble shook the structure around them, making Pidge's bones vibrate. The door that had been blocking their path was flung into the corridor like it weighed nothing, slamming into the unprepared Galran soldiers behind them. Pidge and Keith landed hard on the ground, the force of the impact jarring Pidge's arm, bringing the heretofore ignored injury to the forefront of her attention.

She cried out before she could stop herself, and Keith quickly rolled off of her. His face slid into her line of vision, eyebrows knit tightly with outright worry now. His eyes slid to her arm, then back to her face. She schooled her features into a scowl and pushed herself up into a sitting position. She couldn't meet Keith's eyes, though. She'd endangered his life, all because of her blind stubbornness. Just like she'd done to-

Pidge swallowed hard, horrified to feel hot tears on her face.

"Come on," Keith said, holding out a hand to her, voice uncharacteristically gentle, "Homestretch. Almost out of here."

She lifted her hand, hating how weak and useless she felt in that moment, but knowing she'd feel that much worse if she let her obstinacy make things any worse than it already had.

The chamber previously sealed off by the the security door was still hazy with smoke from the recent explosion, but Pidge could make out Hunk's silhouette in front of the mouth of his lion, large bayard held at the ready and smoke curling up from its barrel. Well. That was new. As the smoke cleared and they got closer, she saw a disturbingly hard expression in his face that gave her pause. The look quickly dissolved into relief at the sight of them, then one of wide-eyed worry when his eyes landed on Lance. All color drained from his face.

"Oh man, what happened? Is he okay?" He asked, and each desperate word drove the knife of guilt deeper into Pidge's chest.

"Move now. Talk later." Shiro said, not unkindly, moving quickly past Hunk to enter the yellow lion.

Hunk straightened immediately, the familiar tone of command bringing him into focus. "Right. Of course." He turned closely to follow Shiro to get into the pilot's seat to prepare for a quick getaway.

Keith and Pidge were right behind him, followed closely by Coran, who kept his other smaller firearm held at the ready until the yellow lion's mouth sealed shut with comforting finality.

The yellow lion, which had been chosen for the breech for its brute force capabilities, made the escape with less finesse and speed than the other lions would have. What in lacked in agility, though, it more than made up for in sheer endurance against the barrage of countermeasures the Galran base threw at them. Hunk was unusually quiet, his normal nervous chatter completely absent, making Pidge paradoxically more anxious.

It didn't help that Hunk's silence was filled by Shiro and Coran's strained voices as they saw to Lance.

Coran was running a medical scanner over Lance's body, his jaw muscles twitching as he did so. "His heart rate does not appear normal for your kind," he said, words a conspicuously professional contrast to his abnormally gruff tones.

Pidge huddled further into herself in the far corner she'd settled in. Out of the way where she couldn't cause any more damage, though Keith insisted on hovering by her side for some reason. She barely noticed as he wordlessly cut open her sleeve to apply a soothing gel to her arm. All her attention was fixed on her fallen friend.

She watched as Coran continued the scan, his hand stopping above Lance's stomach where the Galran commander had applied her hideous tool. Images of Lance's face, contorted in agony, flashed unbidden to her mind's eye. Her whole body shuddered and she pulled away from Keith's ministrations.

"Pidge, please. I need to-"

"Just stop." Pidge said, dodging out of his tentative reach to continue his work. "Leave me alone. I told you I'm fine."

"Pidge," Keith started again, holding out his hand tentatively, like she was some feral animal he was was trying to slowly coax into his care. His soothing tone sparked an irrational burst of anger in Pidge.

"I said stop!" She shouted. His kindness was the last thing in the world she wanted right now. It look Pidge a moment to realize everyone but Hunk was staring at her, jaws slack and eyes concerned. "Stop looking at me like that." she muttered sharply, averting her gaze to look at Lance's prone form, "For the last time, I said I was fine."

Some small part of her knew she was being unreasonable, but she needed them to see. To understand that she didn't deserve their kindness. She'd lost any right to that the moment she'd said 'No' in that room with Lance. If they knew what she'd done, they wouldn't be looking at her like that. They wouldn't look at her at all.

As Pidge looked on, at a loss for words, Lance's body suddenly seized. It was a horrifying marionette's parody of all the times he'd been shocked with the Galrans' awful tool, his muscles taut as fence wire and his face rigid with pain even as his eyes remained closed. Shiro moved instantly to Lance's head, cushioning the blue paladin's skull with the quickest tool at his disposal; his lap. Pidge watched, just as hopeless as she'd been when they were at the commander's mercy, as Lance continued to convulse. It passed quickly. It was only a matter of seconds, but it might as well have been a lifetime.

As soon as his body settled back into stillness, Coran and Shiro set back to work treating Lance, their movements efficient but careful. Pidge wrapped her arms rightly around her knees and buried her face, effectively cutting off any further attempts to approach her. She stayed that way, listening to her teammates' worried voices as they sought to save Lance's life, punctuated the whole way with pained moans and whimpers in an all too recognizable voice. Pidge longed to shove her hands over her ears, but her helmet ruled out that option, so she just kept her vise grip on her legs, fingers going numb from the pressure. It was all she could do not to dissolve into a gibbering mess. She made herself hold on though, because it would only distract her teammates from what mattered, and she could at least hold it together till they made it back to the castle.

It was easily the longest ride of her life.


	3. Chapter 3

"Pidge, you should rest," Shiro's hand on her shoulder stirred Pidge from her dazed state. It took her a few extra moments to process any coherent meaning to his words. She scowled when she did.

"I _am_ resting," She said, curling further into her blanket and shifting to a more agreeable position propped up against Lance's healing pod. Her shoulder still ached incessantly, and it was hard to get comfortable. Shiro gave her a dubious look from his position crouched in front of her.

"Pidge," Shiro said, his gentle tone grating on Pidge's nerves, "You need proper sleep. In a bed. I promise I'll come get you when he wakes up."

"I'm fine right here," Pidge said shifting again to a passably reclined position, but not quite willing to go horizontal. If she did, she might actually fall all the way asleep and miss something important with Lance's pod. Or worse, fall into one of her nightmares.

Shiro studied her for a moment before finally letting out a defeated sigh. "You know being here won't make him heal any faster," his tone said he didn't expect an actual answer from her, and Pidge was more than happy not to provide one. He ran his flesh and bone arm through his hair before sighing again, apparently coming to a decision. "Right, then. Make room," he said, unfurling a blanket of his own that Pidge hadn't even noticed he was holding.

He didn't give her the option of objecting, taking up position next to her, leaving enough space for her comfort, but making it clear he was there for the duration. His body was a natural barrier against the chill castle air that wasn't entirely unwelcome. Still, Pidge kept her gaze fixed on the floor in front of her, afraid to see Shiro's concerned expression. Instead, she continued her futile exercise in counting the miniscule dots that were only visible as close to the floor as she and Shiro were at the moment. It was about as effective as every other attempt she'd made to distract herself.

"Allura said it may take him another day or so before he recovers enough to leave the pod," Shiro said, almost conversationally after a few minutes of silence.

"Actually, he has another..." Pidge glanced at the tablet she had propped on her knees, "...Nineteen point zero three vargas before his estimated wake time...give or take." She added weakly after glancing up to see Shiro's brows crease.

"You really have everything down to a science, don't you?" He said, a hint of admiration in his tone, "Just don't...don't put too much on yourself. I've seen you accomplish the impossible, but sometimes it's good to slow down. Even at times like now. Maybe _especially_ at times like now."

Pidge grunted noncommittally at that, surreptitiously tilting her tablet slightly away from Shiro. She didn't want him to see that she was studying the scan of his arm that she had stored away. She was in the planning stages still, but she thought maybe she could design something to help Lance once he was awake.

If he even wanted to talk to her when he woke up.

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat, shaking her head to try and bring back some focus to her sluggish thoughts. Shiro's breathing had deepened to the deep steady pace of sleep when Pidge finally had something workable started. Once she was sure Lance woke up, she'd talk to Hunk about helping her make her ideas a reality.

She could feel her own exhaustion pulling her closer and closer to unconsciousness. She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep until a familiar beeping warning sound disturbed her light slumber. She woke with a gasp, horrific images from her nightmare fading too slowly to the back of her mind as she tried to make sense of the reality she'd woken back to.

She glanced down at her tablet to see it was her alert that Lance was close to waking up. She scrambled out of her blanket nest to peer into Lance's pod. To her relief, Lance was still inside, face slack with the aloofness of artificially induced slumber. Seeing his annoying face awake again would be a welcome change after so much lifelessness.

And the thought of seeing Lance awake, though, Pidge felt her stomach drop down to her knees, the sickening sensation making her vision swirl. Breathing was suddenly a chore she had to focus on to continue. She couldn't be here when Lance woke up. If she was here, he'd see her, and she was afraid of what he would say. She wasn't stupid enough to believe she could avoid the confrontation forever, but she couldn't help it.

Before she even realized what she was doing, she fled down the hall, her bare feet pounding against the hard metal of the castle floor. She was only vaguely aware of where she was going, her every ounce of waning brainpower devoted to the overriding fear that pushed her forward. It was fueled the certainty that she was the absolute worst person Lance could wake up to. Especially as weak as he was. He needed some time and space to be allowed to...recover. Hadn't Allura said so? And in the meantime, she'd work on her prototype to help him. Fixing things. Building things. That was what she was good at. Facing the person she'd condemned to torture? Not so much.

"Pidge!" Hunk's familiar voice caught her off guard, and she froze automatically, realizing she'd run straight to what she'd come to think of as her and Hunk's workroom.

"Hunk," she said, not quite managing to disguise her heavy panting at her recent exertion. She was more out of breath than this short run should have made her, and she wasn't cognizant enough to process why.

"What's wrong?" Hunk asked, taking in her disheveled, anxious appearance. His eyes widened and he shot up from his seat. "Oh, no. Is it Lance?"

"No! No." She assured Hunk as she struggled to recollect her breath with her thoughts. "No. He's...well, he's as fine we could hope, considering. I just…"

Hunk, walked out from behind his workbench, his brows only unknitting slightly as his fear for Lance turned into concern for her. "What? What is it?" He gently prodded.

Pidge took in one extra long gulp of air. "I just needed to get away for a little bit. I...I need something else to focus on. Actually, I was wondering if you could help me." She wasn't exactly lying per se, just expertly skirting the underlying truth.

"Sure, Pidge. Of course, I'll help. What with?" As Hunk finally approached her, standing so close, she could see deep bags underscoring his eyes. It reinforced her decision not to tell him the whole truth. Even if Hunk was one of the easiest people to talk to, he was clearly already under a lot of strain. She wasn't going to unload all her personal baggage on him right now.

"Thank you, Hunk," Pidge gave him a tired smile. Then she lifted her tablet to show Hunk the beginnings of her designs. "I was working on this for Lance, but I need your expertise."

Hunk's features finally softened into a smile. "I guess great minds _do_ think alike. Come here, look at what I have so far. Human anatomy wasn't exactly my focus at the Garrison. Maybe between the two of us, we can piece something together."

As Pidge followed him to the workbench, she felt the familiar pull of a clear and present problem loosen a few of the dozens of knots in her stomach. Within minutes, the two of them fell easily into the back and forth that had never failed to lead them down exciting paths.

"Oh, of course!" Pidge exclaimed after looking over the concept for an artificial tendon design Hunk showed her, "I was so worried about the mobile power source, I didn't even think of that!"

Hunk chuckled shyly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Heh, yeah. I honestly hadn't gotten to the whole power problem yet, so it's a good thing you're here."

"Are you kidding? This is genius!" Pidge said, jabbing a finger at the display between them, "I mean, sure, we'll still have to figure out how to make it look nice and pretty on the outside while still accommodating for the flexibility of these joints here, but it's a really good start."

"Yeah, Lance is kinda picky about his aesthetics, isn't he?" Hunk laughed, "Maybe we can incorporate your glowy power source to make an Iron Man inspired design."

"Hmm, good idea, but I honestly think he's more of a Black Widow fan," Pidge said, "I mean, last time-"

Pidge felt the beginnings of the first real smile she'd managed since her and Lance's rescue evaporate. She felt sideswiped at the guilty realization that she'd actually started enjoying herself for a moment. Her expression shuttered and she glanced away from Hunk, trying to decide the best way to change the subject.

She was saved from any clumsy transitions by the sound of Shiro's voice coming in through the castle speakers. "Paladins. Lance is awake. As you all know, he's still not going to be at 100%, so we need to take it slow for now."

"Aye aye, captain." Hunk said, locking the screen with their designs on it, "On our way!" Hunk was already halfway to the entrance before he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. "Pidge, you coming?"

Pidge hardly heard his words over her pounding heart and churning thoughts. No matter how hard she tried to shut out the images, she kept flashing back to Lance's face twisted with mindless agony and horror as his inhuman screams filled her ears. _Look what you're doing to him._ The echoes of her nightmares whispered at her.

"I...I-uh need to grab something from my room. I'll be a sec," Pidge said before she rushed away without waiting for Hunk's reaction.

 _Just remember, Green Paladín, you did this to him._

My second time stepping out of a healing pod wasn't any less disorienting than the first. And I use the term "stepping" pretty loosely. It was more like a half-drunk lurching that accomplished close enough to the same thing. This time, though, I fell immediately into a pair of warm, waiting arms that helped guide me to a soft, pillow mountain.

I sank down with a grateful sigh, trying briefly to force my rubbery limbs into a less ragdoll position, but giving up almost right away. Every part of me still ached. And not just that, there was a pulsing, persistent pain radiating from my midsection. Even that small assisted trip from the pod to a chair had winded me, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to finally catch my breath. When the world around me stopped spinning so much, I turned to my helper and squinted at him.

"Shiro?" I asked, and I was relieved to feel that my voice was no longer scraped raw.

Shiro's worn face entered my field of vision and creased into a smile, "Yeah, Lance, it's me."

I did my best to smile but if I looked as bad as I felt, it was probably a good thing I couldn't see the end result of my efforts just then. I screwed up my face, thinking. "Then...that really wasn't a hallucination...you guys actually came…" my heartbeat quickened. "And...that means everything else…" _Oh, God. Not again._ "Pidge!" I shot up out of my cushion nest, using my arms to propel myself upright and regretted it immediately. Before I could even get halfway out, a stab of pain flared up from my right hand and I let out an involuntary gasp.

Shiro put a staying hand on my shoulder.

"Whoah, whoah. Relax, Lance. Everything's fine. Pidge is fine. But you need to take it easy. You still have a lot of recovering to do."

My heart was still hammering in my skull, but Shiro's soothing tones and insistence that Pidge was fine slowly convinced me to lie back down. I gripped my right wrist, careful to avoid the hand itself. I did my best to concentrate on just breathing and trying to get my body to stop shaking, but it was easier said than done as memories of Pidge and my capture snapped into place with unnerving clarity. Just the memories alone were enough to send pinpricks of icy sweat trickling down the back of my neck.

All the while, Shiro sat patiently, a comforting hand resting on my shoulder. I felt myself flush with shame, and I had to look away when he gave me a grim smile of encouragement. Here I was, falling to pieces after my short stint in Galran hands, and Shiro had endured much worse for a lot longer. Yet he was the one, solid and strong as ever, lending a hand at my side.

"Shiro, what happened? How did you guys manage to find us? I thought we were going to-" I paused, still focusing on evening out my breath with my words bursting through the seams of my otherwise haphazardly constrained anxiety, "The last thing I remember was you, and Keith and...and was Coran really there? Was that even real? I don't-"

"Whoah, easy now," Shiro said, and gave me a reassuring smile, "Take it slow. I promise I'll answer all your questions."

I ground my teeth, willing myself to calm down. I needed to get a grip.

I was cradling my injured hand, curling around the limb. It hurt way more than I would've guessed it would, seeing as I'd just spent who knew how long in a healing pod. Even after surviving the explosion during Sendak's invasion, I hadn't been hurting when I'd finally stepped out of the healing pod. Exhausted, dizzy, and slightly nauseous, yes, but not in any pain.

I shoved all those thoughts aside though, my very real fear for Pidge outweighing my vague worry about the healing pods. "Where's Pidge?" I asked, "Is she…is she okay?"

"Pidge is fine." Shiro repeated, "Why don't you lie back down? I'll call the rest of the team back down here if you're up for it?"

Normally the answer to that would be a no-brainer. But just as I sucked in a breath to tell Shiro how I was born ready, I stopped short. Was I really ready to see everyone after the mess I'd made?

I shook my head inwardly. I was being dumb. Of course, I was ready. I was overthinking things. I glanced guiltily at Shiro, who looked even more worried at my hesitation. I really did need to get a grip. I forced my face into the shape of a smile, even as my muscles protested like they'd forgotten how a smile worked.

"Yeah." I said, injecting my voice with the confidence that had carried me from my Garrison days all the way to Voltron, "I'd never say no to some glory basking," I paused as if a thought just occurred to me, "I wonder if alien chicks also dig a wounded hero…"

Shiro's strained features finally smoothed slightly into a look a fond tolerance. "I wouldn't know," was all he said. He stepped away to grab his helmet, which was resting on the other side of the couch and spoke something I couldn't make out into his com.

It wasn't long before I heard a very welcome voice greeting me from the entryway. "Lance!" Hunk shouted, face lighting up when his eyes found me. I sat back up with an exciting start, and this time I barely noticed the twinge in my stomach.

"Hey, buddy," I said, feeling a weird catch in my throat that I most definitely didn't see coming. It was like his simple, undeniable delight at seeing me of all people coming so soon after my recent experiences set something off in me. I did my best to smother my traitorous tremors as Hunk enveloped me in the world's most gentle hug. Which was kind of weird, coming from Hunk, almost like he was afraid of breaking me if he hugged too hard. I tightened my own grip on him, and Hunk instantly took that for the permission it was and tightened his hold.

I swallowed against a fresh wave of pain his embrace ignited in my stomach, afraid he'd let go if I let on how much it hurt. One Hunk hug was worth all the pain in the world.

"Hunk, careful. Lance isn't fully recovered yet." I heard our new arrival, Allura, cut in. Hunk instantly jerked back.

"Oh man, sorry," he said, fluttering his hands anxiously like he wasn't sure what to do with the now apparently dangerous things attached to him, "Did I hurt you?"

"Psh! Couldn't even if you tried," I lied, forcing myself to stay casually upright instead of collapsing back into my pillow nest like I really wanted to. "How's it going, Princess?"

Allura gave me a weary smile in return, her normally rigid posture deflated ever-so-slightly by exhaustion. "Hello, Lance," she said, "It's good to see you awake."

"Likewise," I said, feeling a surge of warmth color my cheeks at the sight of her genuine concern.

"I apologize for the mediocre healing," she said, eyes shifting away from mine, "The healing pods aren't up to full capacity after the escape. I had to divert all remaining resources getting us away from the stronghold…"

The guilt I'd managed to pin down until that moment twisted in my gut.

"A fortunate thing you did, too," Coran said from where he and Keith now stood behind her, "We would've been chum for a meeblesnort if you hadn't gotten us out of there when you did."

"Yes.." Allura said, still not quite meeting my eyes, which only made my guilt twist that much harder. "At a not insignificant cost."

Her eyes slid to my bandaged right hand, which I'd been doing a pretty good job of ignoring, thank you very much. I glanced down too and shied back from a gaping maw of unpleasant emotions that threatened eat away at my insides. All at once, everyone tried very hard not to stare, and I felt a mounting tension make the air thick and heavy in my lungs. Everyone was intensely focused on not being too focused on the one thing we were all focused on.

I was panicking, and so I said the first thing that popped into my head.

"Oh, you mean this?" I asked, flopping the limb everyone in the room was determinedly _not_ staring at, "Yeah, so some Galran lady got a little carried away with a knife, but it could've been a lot worse. I'm just taking it as a lesson in how not to use sharp pointy things. Maybe something you should think about, Blade Boy." I shot Keith a superior look. There. That was a nice touch. It might do the trick.

Instead of giving me his usual irritated look, though, Keith thinned his mouth into a grim line, his arms crossed. If I wasn't worried about accidentally jarring my hand, I would've crossed my own arms.

"Lance," Hunk started, apparently unconvinced by my Oscar-worthy performance. "You don't have to-"

"By the way, what's taking Pidge so long?" I bulldozed over my friend, pretending not to hear him.

Hunk frowned, but he apparently decided he'd let my subject change fly, because he replied, "She said she had to get something from her room. She should be here any second now."

The prospect sucker-punched me with gut-clenching fear. Another thing I hadn't seen coming. "...Good." Was all I managed to say through my constricting throat. Why was I suddenly so scared of seeing Pidge when not even a few minutes ago I'd been freaking out at her absence?

"So…" I said, swallowing hard. "What all happened?" Maybe, if the others were talking when Pidge came in, I'd be spared from having to make any direct contact with her for that much longer.

"Well, we managed to outmaneuver the Galran force like we planned," Keith said, apparently more comfortable with the less touchy-feely direction of the conversation. "But when you and Pidge didn't show up at the rendezvous point after a few hours, we knew something must've gone wrong..." Keith had paused for a second as if the others were still apparently waiting for more details.

 _Yeah,_ I _went wrong,_ I thought. I couldn't quite make myself say the words out loud, though.

"So then you guys staged an epic rescue. Complete with flying swords." I said, trying to move the recap along. "Pretty dumb way to use a sword, by the way. I still stand by what I said about knife safety."

Keith rolled his eyes at that. "Hey, it worked, didn't it?"

"Point." I conceded, then, just because he smirked at that, I added, "Still dumb."

"We're just glad we found you," Shiro said, "If it wasn't for Hunk we would've never been able to unmask their cloaking technology to find you."

"Looks like I owe you another one, Hunk," I said, shooting my friend a grateful look.

"Ah, no," Hunk said, holding up a hand as if to block my praise, "It was mostly just me expanding on something Pidge had already done most of the work for. It wasn't much."

"Hunk, my friend, you are way too humble sometimes, you know that?" I said, shaking my head with a world-weary sigh. I didn't anticipate that doing so would make the whole world suddenly tilt dangerously.

"Lance!" Shiro said. I felt his arms on my back, but it was hard to tell exactly which way was up for another few seconds as my vision finally settled back down. Once it did, I realized I was back to leaning against the pillows as Shiro slipped his hands out from under me.

"Well, that was a trip," I mumbled.

"Okay," Shiro said, "I think it's time for some rest."

"I still haven't said hi to Pidge," I protested, but I wasn't brave enough to make a move to sit back up. I wasn't sure I'd be able to pull it off again.

"You really do look like you could use some rest." Hunk said.

I glared at him. "Now you're just being rude," I said. But it was hard to put enough annoyance in my voice to be convincing. Already, with my body resting so comfortably against the pile of pillows, I could feel myself drifting, my whole body feeling like it was being absorbed into the couch. I was way more tired than I realized.

"Pidge must've got held up," Hunk said, "I'm sure she'll be around to see you first thing when you wake up again."

"Hmm…" I said, eyelids already drooping further downward, "But I'm not...that tired..." And I drifted off to sleep.

Pidge didn't show up when I woke up the next time. And she didn't show up the time after that, either. I kept drifting off and jolting back awake after only brief periods of sleep. By my third time waking up, I was starting to feel less and less dizzy, and more and more worried. _Are the others hiding something from me?_ _Is she really okay?_ I wondered. But no, I'd heard Shiro talking with her on his comm, and even to protect my feelings, I don't think he would go that far. At least, I was mostly sure. But no matter when I woke up, it seemed like she was in the middle of something.

And pretty soon after that conclusion, I was forced to acknowledge another possibility: Pidge was avoiding me.

I felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. Of course, she was avoiding me. Could I really blame her? She deserved her space, and I should count myself lucky she hadn't told everyone how much of a screw-up I was. Maybe she was waiting for me to tell everyone the ugly truth. Maybe she was deciding what to do. And why wasn't I more relieved, anyway? Hadn't I been afraid to see her again? Still, I couldn't help the small thread of hurt that stitched itself into every thought in her direction. And even though I tried really hard to distract myself, my thoughts always circled back to her.

"Morning, Lance," Hunk greeted me cheerfully during one of my funks. I was sitting up and fiddling with the edges of my bandage, staring at the dots on the castle floor but not really seeing them. I only distantly felt the gentle brush of one of the mice's whiskers on my neck as it groomed the short hairs there, another sleeping on my shoulder. The other two were conspicuously absent from the normally inseparable quartet. Hunk took a seat at my side. "I figured you'd probably be hungry by now, so I brought you some goo."

"Oh," I said, trying to shake off my depressing thoughts. Even if I didn't feel like eating, I was actually pretty hungry. "Thanks, man."

Hunk misinterpreted my lack of enthusiasm, "I know, not the greatest, sorry. Once we're able to stop, I'll see if I can get some stuff to make you some soup."

"Yeah, that would be nice," I said, trying to drum up some energy to return Hunk's friendliness. I must've scraped the bottom of the barrel of my reserves, though, because I couldn't seem to muster enough to even smile back at him. Hunk's face fell as he held out the bowl of food goo for me. I reached over to take it with my right hand, only to stop mid-motion, my bandaged limb froze in mid-air. My face great hot, as I jerked my hand back to take the bowl with my other one.

I balanced the bowl between my knees and did my best to pretend I ate without the use of my dominant hand every day. I managed to ignore Hunk's concerned expression for only a little while, though.

"So…" Hunk started, "How, uh, how'd you sleep? Shiro told me you kept waking up before I took over watch."

My first instinct was to brush Hunk's question off with the same bluster I'd been using so far. It hadn't failed me up to that point. Yet whether it was my low mood, Hunk's open expression, or some combination of the two, I don't know; but I felt compelled to be honest with my best friend, if only for a moment.

"Honestly, Hunk? Not so great." I said. I was too frozen with anxiety about his reaction to going any further than that.

Hunk seemed to sense the topic was only hanging by a thin line, because he spoke carefully, "Yeah? Any idea why?"

"I keep having these...dreams. About the…" I took a shaky breath, "About _it_."

"Oh," Hunk let out his own breath. His eyes met mine, searching, and I swallowed and closed my eyes against the vivid, ultra def memories that tried to replay themselves in my mind's eye. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"I know," I said, "And I don't."

Hunk nodded in understanding, but I wasn't fooled into thinking that would be the last of that unhappy conversation.

"Anyway," I said, scooping another spoonful of food goo into my mouth, "I'll be fine. I think I just need some time."

"You will," Hunk said, giving my arm a reassuring squeeze. "We've survived things I wouldn't have thought possible only a year ago. We'll get through this too. As a team. Like always."

"Yeah," I said woodenly, as, yet again, my thoughts circled back to Pidge. "A team. Like always."


End file.
